People Are Furious That White Actress Rooney Mara Was Cast As Native American Character In 'Peter Pan'

Aly Weisman, provided by

Published 1:43 pm, Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Here's what Native American princess "Tiger Lily" looked like in Disney's "Peter Pan."

And here's Rooney Mara, the 28-year-old actress who was just cast as the "Tiger Lily" character in a new live-action adaptation titled "Pan" from director Joe Wright.

The two don't exactly look identical, and fans are not pleased.

A new petition protesting Warner Bros.' casting has already collected over 4,300 signatures, after launching on Tuesday.

The Care2 petition notes that the original character in the J. M. Barrie story is a Native American princess, stating: "The casting choice is particularly shameful for a children's movie. Telling children their role models must all be white is unacceptable."

But as Variety reports, "The studio took on exhaustive search in finding the right girl to play Lily, looking at other actresses such as Lupita Nyong'o and 'Blue is the Warmest Color' thespian Adele Exarchopoulos before going out to Mara for the role."

White actors Hugh Jackman and Garrett Hedlund are also set to star in "Pan," which the petition takes issue with as well, stating, "Not so multi-racial after all, Warner Bros. Tell Warner Bros. to stop casting white actors to play characters originally written as people of color!"

Twitter has also been abuzz over the casting controversy:

Rooney Mara is an incredibly gifted, insightful artist. But come on. You couldn't find a Native American actress to play Tiger Lily!?!?